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Levan Bregadze the Markers of Nikoloz Baratashvili's Levan Bregadze The Markers of Nikoloz Baratashvili’s Romanticism Abstract: It is discussed N. Baratashvili’s romanticism in close connection with the worldview of one of the most prominent creators and thinkers, “foremost” romanticist Novalis; on the basis of Novalis’ perception of the life romanticizing, using the technical means of polarization and potentiation it is studied how in the Nikoloz Baratashvili’s creative works the relationship with the universe, people, everyday occurrences is romanticized, the goal of which is to make the life intensive, full-blooded, to open its way towards infinity. Key words: Baratashvili, Novalis, romanticism, polarization, potentiation. Most of the writer-romanticists lived short lives: Edgar Allan Poe lived 40 years on this earth, Giacomo Leopardi and Juliusz Słowacki died at their 39th years of age, Charlotte Brontë passed away at the age of 38, Robert Burns and Alexander Pushkin diedat 37, George Gordon Byron – 36, José María Heredia – 35, Heinrich von Kleist, José de Espronceda and Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer – 34, Wilhelm Müller – 33, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Emily Brontë -30, Novalis, Anne Brontë and Branko Radičević – 29, Nikoloz Baratashvili – 27, Mikhail Lermontov, Sándor Petőfi, Karel Hynek Mácha and Karoline von Günderrode – 26, John Keats, Wilhelm Hauff and Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder – 25... and yet, in the short time of their lives, they created the literature of such a quality that they will remain in the memory of mankind forever; some of them marked the history of literature so profoundly that they still influence and will continue to influence in future the spiritual formation of people. How did they manage that? What explanation can be found? The answer to this conundrumhas to be found in their philosophy of life, in the philosophy of romantic life. The romanticists knew something that made their lives and creative work full- blooded and intensive. They managed to sharpen the feelings, or so to say,to create a sharper perception of reality by means ofpolarization and potentiation. Where the polarityor contradiction was weakly felt, they used to strengthen (potentiate) them artificially using thetechnique of polarization, which they mastered perfectly. Between the opposite poles, where reignsa harmony full of tension, they managed to find for themselves a space for romantic existence. And even if on their way full of danger, evil fatesovertook them too early, they did not deserve pity for that – that was their choice. Generally, if we want to understand to some extent the essence of this complex phenomenon – romanticism, we have to address the arch-romanticist Novalis. In his texts, in his views on the life and creative work, we can find, so to say, the essence of romanticism, which we cannot find in so primary form, so palpable with the other romanticists. That is even more necessary for us today, because Novalis was viewed by the Soviet literary science as a representative of the so called reactionary or pessimistic romanticism; for that reason he could be mentioned only in a negative context, while N. Baratashvili was declared as a progressive romanticist. As the contemporary German philosopher Wilhelm Schmid, the re-establisher of the philosophy of art of living, decided to research the principals of the philosophy of romantic life, he addressed Novalis. W. Schmid’s article “The art of romantic living”, his lecture delivered in 2000 in Tbilisi, which we translated into Georgian at the author’s request and published in the 2nd volume of the Journal “SJani” in 2001, serves asthe foundation of this our work. Let us see in what extent the philosophies of life of Baratashvili and of Novalis were the same and let us try to “measure” in this way the grade of the romanticism of Baratashvili. 1 W. Schmid writes: “For the theory of romanticism and for the art of living it is fundamental that an individual and the world, the life and the history need apolarity between the poles of which, so to say, a currentis flowing. In this context “the current” was not a metaphor at that time, but the real electricity was meant: referring to Galvan and Volta, Novalis calls those poles plus and minus. [...] We should recognize the negative sides of the existence – illness, insanity, and death – as the second pole. It is not the art of living to avoid them. The history vibrates between the positive pole of the ideal and the negative pole of the reality, always lagging behind the ideal: An attempt of rapprochement of the real and the ideal does never end up with their merging” (Schmid 2001: 40). Nikoloz Baratashvili is well aware of the possibilities of potentiation of life by means polarization and ofromanticizing itin this way. This is visible from the phrase ofhis letter to Grigol Orbeliani, in which he writes about the capture of his uncle (his mother’sbrother) Ilia Orbeliani by Shamil: “Imagine, even Golovin’s wife said that she always expected a Georgian would give such an answer as they say Ilia had given [to Shamil]: I prefer death to your captivity. Bravo, Iliko behaved himself bravely. [...] Sometimes even such an incident is good in one’s life” (Baratashvili 1972: 116. Underlining is ours. – L. B.). Baratashvili himself, as a real romantic, was living and creating between polarities. His most important andconspicuouspolaritywas created, on the one hand, by the very miserable environment, in which he was living as an ordinary clerk, and, on the other hand, by his great talent and high spiritual interests. Thosepoleshad determined mostly his luck, as well as his unluckiness, which is so evident that we won’tdwell on this any longer and will go on to other polarities that are not so easy to notice with the naked eye. Science and religion There exists an opinion in the peoplethataromanticistis “a dreamy, sensually driven person” (Dictionary... 1960: 454-455), and they defineromantics(romance) as follows: “A disposition in which the sense prevails over the mind, a tendency to dreaming” (Dictionary... 1960: 454). But forNovalis “The sense is only the second, complementary pole of the science” (Schmid 2001: 41). Here is a fragment from Wilhelm Schmid’s article: Novalis “himself is talking [...] about his ‘love towards some sciences’. He, a romanticist, is driven by the thirst of knowledge, and is analyzing, measuring, and explaining with the help of mathematical rules (...)”. He was fascinated above all by mathematics, he is literally exited as he speaks about it: “The highest life is the mathematics”, (...) “a real mathematician is an enthusiast per se. Mathematics does not exist without enthusiasm”; “the pure mathematics is a religion”, “if someone does not take the book of mathematics with respect and does not read it as the word of God, then he will not understand it”. [...] It is certainly a little difficult to see a mathematician in the true romanticist, but if we get accustomed to it, then it will be no longer a great surprise to uswhen we see Novalis, a man with romantic senses, engaged in the exploration works of brown coal mines, as a worker of mine industry, who loves Geology as wellbesides of his senses” (Schmid 2001: 41). Fortunately, we can imagine thanks to a few memories about N. Baratashvili, passed down to us by the poet’s friends, the attitude the poet used to have towards science. “Baratashvili learned every subject well. The teacher of physics, Shestakov, who went away for some time, trusted him and Levan Melikishvili to continue the meteorological observation he started. Baratashvili was fulfilling well the trusted task, until, on some unfortunate day, the thermometer broke. He wanted to buy another thermometer, but he had no money and thus, he felt unhappy and very guilty before his teacher, - told us Levan Melikishvili” (Meunargia 1968: 13). 2 In the 1940s Professor Mikheil Chikovani foundin Leningrad, in the Central Archive of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, documentation that tells about Nikolos Baratashvili’s attitude towards science (Chikovani 1968: 22-33). Pavle Ingorokva writes with reference to those documents, as follows: “As it turns out [...],N. Baratashvili cooperated with the Academy of Science of Petersburg,to where at that time, at the initiative of the famous Georgian public figure and scientist Teimuraz Batonishvili, was invited academician Marie Brosset, who started to lead the research of the historical past of Georgia [...]. In 1842,anemployeeof the Academy of Sciences, a colleague of Marie Brosset, adjunct Julie Fritsche came to Tbilisi. He was instructed by Marie Brosset to buy Georgian books and old Georgian manuscripts. In the report presented at the historical-literary department of the Academy of Sciences of Petersburg on the 13th of January 1843, Fritsche writes: ‘One Georgian poet, [...] the prince Baratashvili, declared his willingness, should it interest the academy, firstly to prepare the list of the Georgian manuscripts known to him, and then to rewrite the manuscripts the academy would choose. I am rushing to inform the academy about that’”. It has to be noted that, for such a particular matter they contact not a person who worked especially on the research of the works of Georgian history and old Georgian writing, but they contact the poet N. Baratashvili who apparently counted as the greatest authority in the field” (Ingorokva 1968: 45. The underlining is ours. – L. B.). There we read: “... A famous researcher Mikheil Barataev, the author of the monumental work “The numismatic facts of the Georgian kingdom (Нумизматические факты Грузинского царства)” writes in a letter dated September 20, 1846 (Mikheil Barataev did not knew at that time about the death of the poet) to Meliton,the father of N. Baratashvili: “I would be very glad, if our beloved Nikoloz Melitonovich [...],would complete with his rich knowledge and talent the first work of his old grandfather (i.e.
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